


Dead Ringer

by polarized_light



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, Horror, Suspense, pizza delivery au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarized_light/pseuds/polarized_light
Summary: Lately, Mike Schmidt has had a problem. A phone call from an unknown sender is giving strange demands. A dreaded date is approaching. It seems these days, staying inside his home is the only safe option. All he has eaten for the past four days is delivery pizza. What could a fifth night of pizza possibly do?
Relationships: Phone Guy & Mike Schmidt (Five Nights at Freddy's)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a major rewrite of the old fic I posted on another site. (It was originally titled "Night 368" or something like that.) I started writing it 4ish years ago and abandoned it. Ironically, what I regret the most about the old version is the newer chapters I posted last year. 
> 
> As I started again, it became clear that years apart can result in incompatible visions and writing styles. So here is a better, more cohesive version overall.

* * *

Mike groaned into his pillow. After hours of lying on his raggedy couch, his hunger pangs overcame his emptiness.

Reluctantly, he pushed himself off the couch and dragged himself to the kitchen, where the phone sat near the unattended calendar. He didn't need to mark the calendar to realize what day it was. It was three hours until November 10th: exactly a year after his fourth night at the worst job he has ever held.

While ignoring the feeling of the calendar staring at him, Mike flipped open his phone book, which sat on the small table. He briefly glanced at the four empty pizza boxes littered throughout the room and then scanned the yellow pages for pizza delivery services.

Ironically, Mike cringed at the sight of phones and pizza, but ordering pizza was the only way of getting food he had any energy to pursue. He ran out of food this week, and actually leaving the house after work for the past few weeks seemed just as impossible as feeling less lonely. What could a fifth night of pizza possibly do?

After lazily scrolling through business names, Mike's eyes abruptly stopped. _Pizza Italy._

This was the first pizzeria he found that he didn't already order from this week. He never heard of the place. However, it didn't matter; he felt too embarrassed to order from a familiar restaurant so soon again.

Mike circled the business's phone number with his pen.

Almost mindlessly, he reached for the phone without looking. Once he touched it, he flinched.

He raised his head and stared at it with stinging eyes.

“ _There is urgent work that still needs to be done at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza sometime this week.”_

No. He wouldn't dare call Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Especially after _that_ call from a few days ago. Although it was irrational, the idea of associating with that pizzeria whatsoever made him feel like the animatronics could track him down. He already still expected Freddy to appear every time he heard a small clink, and he didn't need any more fire to fuel his consuming paranoia. Besides, the health department unsurprisingly shut down that shack months ago. Nothing human would answer. Something inhuman, however…

_“Call me back.”_

Mike winced and rubbed his eyes hard. Still, maybe it would be worth it, just to alleviate himself from his prison of fear.

He sighed as he punched in the pizzeria's digits. As the phone rang two long times, Mike stared at the plain wall and twirled the cord in boredom. Finally, the call picked up.

"Hello, hello?" a haunting, familiar voice greeted.

Mike's entire body jolted, and a flash of ice shot through his veins. His arms trembled so violently that he almost dropped the phone.

 _What was that?!_ Mike internally screamed. Was he hallucinating? What kind of sick joke is this?

He didn't call Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

He decided to dial the other pizzeria instead.

Mike clenched his stomach as it twisted painfully.

"Uh... well, you reached Pizza Italy. What can we do for you today?" the voice continued.

Replying was out of the question; Mike's throat was too tense to even swallow.

"Uh... hello?" the voice nagged. "Are you... uh... doing alright there? Uh."

No. No he wasn't.

What was going on?

"Heh, indecisive about your order or question?" the voice asked. Mike heard him clear his throat. "It's fine. No worries, really. But, uh, we have other customers, you know. I'll put you on hold for now, if that's alright with you."

It was alright with him, but with his stiff tongue, he didn't have a choice anyway.

After a click, generic jazz music played.

Mike clutched the phone in a tight, painful grip as he waited and wondered if the man on the phone really was “Phone Guy”, as Mike dubbed his former trainer.

 _No, of course not_ , Mike argued. After all, every single animatronic could be heard going after him in his final call almost exactly a year ago, and there was that terrifying deep scream at the end…

_“I know you always wondered what happened to him.”_

Mike tried to shake the thought out of his head.

However, Phone Guy's manner of speaking was so distinct, pretty much unforgettable. To Mike, a different man with a voice that similar existing seemed just as unlikely as him surviving.

He tapped his fingers feverishly as he continued to wait. A minute then felt like the equivalent of an hour at the Fazbear's night shift. Yet, not nearly enough time passed for him to control his rapid, shallow breathing. At least his heart slowed down to the staggering pace of a race car before the music stopped.

"Hello!" the warm voice chimed again, after a brief moment of static. "Hello, hello. It's me. Uh, again. Have you decided what you want yet?"

His stomach knotted. It was so eerie to reply to the voice of Phone Guy. Everything felt hazy, like a deranged dream.

"Yeah," Mike forced himself to say.

"Ah, that's... great!" The man sounded genuinely surprised to hear an answer. "So, uh, what would you like?"

“For the world to stop playing a goddamn joke on me.”

“Yeah, th-that’s definitely something that, uh, doesn’t… that doesn’t sound fun. Sorry to hear that. Everything alright?” the voice replied.

Feverish heat rushed to his face when he realized what he said. He was talking to an actual person. _Hell, treating a pizza order like a therapy session,_ Mike berated himself. Now he felt stupid on top of miserable.

“Not really,” Mike said in a low voice. “I’d just like a pizza. Medium. Pepperoni.”

“Great! Got it. Anything else?”

“No.”

After Mike revealed his address, the man said, "Hey, that's pretty close! I'll see you in, uh, five minutes, buddy!"

 _Buddy._ Warmth bubbled beneath Mike’s chest. At the same time, his throat painfully tightened.

The phone clicked, and then the harsh disconnect noise blared. Panic started to spread through Mike's body. He slammed the phone into the base. The resulting silence in the room ringed viciously in his ears.

Memories flooded in from that first night shift. Freddy’s Fazbear Pizza was outright manifestation of everything Mike hated. Bureaucracy to the point of total disfunction. Apathy to the human soul. And Phone Guy was the spokesman of it all.

You could just die painfully, and the company wouldn’t doing anything about it? Was that really what they thought of their workers: less valuable than the costs to prevent their deaths?

And he sounded so flippant about it all, as if this was entirely normal. That wasn’t even touching on the whole _“You’ll be fine!”_ schtick.

But when his desperate final moments were aired, all that resentment was thrown out the window. All Mike could feel was pity for the guy.

It was too late when Mike realized they were the same. The entire reason why he was hearing those words in the first place was because Phone Guy was training him for his job — the same exact job. They were both night guards crammed in a tin can death trap for thankless pay.

As painful as it was, Mike forced himself to relisten to most of the calls before a shift one night. He no longer heard a corporate drone but someone trying to make the best of his situation.

And now, he could be _alive_ , and they might _meet_ each other. Scratch that, they would have already talked.

Mike's stomach dropped at imagining what Phone Guy's impression of him would be from their conversation. What would he regard of the mess that's his apartment, and well, his life?

He took a deep breath as he mentally rehearsed his planned routine several times. _Say "thank you". Give the money and the tip. Asked him if he worked at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. If no, tell him that he sounded familiar. If yes…_

A loud, rude knock interrupted the thought and made Mike jolt out of his skin once again.

Mike reached for the knob. As he opened the door, he saw a slightly dorky man smiling at him. The light from outside illuminated him from behind, casting off a fluorescent halo.

 _“Thank you,”_ was at the tip of Mike's tongue when he glanced at the man's uniform, but rage swelled in his chest instead.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WORKING AT ANOTHER PIZZA PLACE FOR?" Mike shouted with all the bottled-up emotion from the past year. So much for the routine.

The man's corny smile vanished. "W-What?! Uh, sir, I... I-I don't know, what uh..."

With one hand, Mike snatched the pizza box from the man's grip.

"Fazfuck's Pizza. They _murdered_ you," Mike snarled while pointing with his free hand. "And you're just gonna work at another pizzeria? Why?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"H-How... how did you... uh, know about that?" the man stammered in shock.

Dear lord. It really was him.

The pizza box slipped out of Mike's fingers.

"You're the fucking phone guy!" Mike cried as he grasped the man's shirt. "You saved my sorry ass... you told me everything would be okay. Well, it wasn't! YOU DIED!"

That dreaded sensation of almost sobbing overcame Mike, as his throat tightened and his nose tingled. He buried his face in his hands.

"Oh... wow," Mike heard Phone Guy say. "I never thought..."

A strong, warm embrace encompassed Mike. When he raised his head out of his hands, he saw Phone Guy giving him a tight hug.

"I didn't think that it, that call, would get through. Look, uh, I'm glad the other calls helped, but I'm very sorry you had to hear..." Phone Guy trailed. He tightened the hug before continuing. "...That. Is there any way I could, you know, make it up to you, or anything?"

Hot tears were spilling out of Mike's eyes by now. He swallowed the lump in his throat and was just glad he couldn't catch him crying.

Mike cleared his throat and replied, "You saved my life, idiot." Then, Mike hugged him back even harder.

After a few moments, he felt Phone Guy firmly grab his shoulders and pull away from the hug. At first, he was ashamed that the other could notice the state he was in, but it was okay. He had tears welled up in eyes, too.

This time, Phone Guy flashed a genuine smile. "And gave you a year's worth of trauma. How's that? Hey, look, I have another, uh, two hours left on my shift. Is it alright with you if I come back later tonight?"

"Are there any killer animatronics there?"

"Nah, it's just a regular ol' pizza place. No murderers there, animatronic or otherwise," Phone Guy said with a chuckle.

"Then yes."


	2. The Deadline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike finally gets his chance to confront Phone Guy about some things that didn't seem to add up.

Eyeing the now cold pizza on the table, Mike contemplated putting it in the fridge. He suddenly lost his appetite. A long piece of paper tucked under the box grabbed his attention.

Blots of grease distorted the receipt, and the cheap ink having the printed words rub and peel off easily compounded the illegibility. It would have been a great strategy for a sleazy pizzeria to use, to prevent anyone from being able to dispute an incorrect order. Mike bet Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza used that trick. Near the bottom of the receipt, a name was almost completely wiped out, beyond the point of deciphering.

 _Of course,_ Mike sighed, wondering why he would expect anything different. It was impossible to find out his name back then and it was still impossible now. The aftermath of their encounter was a blur, but Mike was certain he didn’t ask for a name before he left.

Mike’s eyes were drawn to the bottom of the receipt again. Dread started building up in his gut as his mind raced, wondering who this stranger was.

With each tick of the clock, Mike became more and more convinced this was some type of fantasy he deluded himself into believing. “Phone Guy” was alive this entire time, and out of any day of the year, he found out on the eve of the “anniversary” of hearing that call? Who was he kidding?

He couldn’t take it any longer, so he pressed a button on the phone to replay the message from three days ago. It was constantly replaying in his head and he had it completely memorized, but he still needed to hear it again.

> _“Hello Mike. There is urgent work that still needs to be done at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza sometime this week. The deadline is Thursday. You will be compensated greatly. I know you always wondered what happened to him. Call me back. Goodbye.”_
> 
> Click.

It raised a lot of questions. Most importantly: what happened to him? But Phone Guy was definitely alive, right? Mike couldn’t help but wonder if Phone Guy was in on this somehow. But how? Mike called _him_. How would it make any sense to get hired for an obscure pizza joint just for Mike to call him by complete chance?

Mike’s head pounded dizzily as he tried to rationalize any of this.

His vision shifted to the pizza box sitting on the table. Maybe it wasn’t as large as a coincidence as he thought. Maybe Phone Guy _really_ liked pizza, and that’s why he happened to work for both companies.

Then Mike’s eyes darted back to phone book. Also, he normally didn’t get depressed enough to only eat delivery until he exhausted every local pizzeria, and the upcoming date was what sucked him into this downward spiral in the first place.

Mike took a deep sigh to reassure himself, but he still felt uneasy. No rationalization either way was convincing. He clumsily brought his jittery hands to the phone again to replay the message.

In a split second, the phone got knocked off the table. Desperately, Mike dove to catch it, and he caught it in a clutch, with a few of the buttons pressed down beneath his fingers in an iron grip.

> _"Message deleted."_

Mike’s throat leaped. He went through the voice messages, and indeed, that message got erased.

Absolute dread washed over him. It was gone. Suddenly, he felt a weight off his shoulders. _It was gone._

He wiped his sweaty palms across his lap and sat down on his couch.

Still, queasiness bubbled in his stomach. There was so much he had to do, rather than space out as the news played. Even if it was bad noise, Mike enjoyed having the news as background noise. Friendly human voices saying anything was his daily supplement for his lackluster social interaction. He wished the human mind wasn’t set up that way. 

Dizzy white dots obscured his vision when he suddenly stood up to finally start cleaning. It would have been frankly rude to invite anyone over to the cluttered mess of boxes, dirty laundry, and unclean dishes, but this had an extra layer to it. Sometimes, he imagined what Phone Guy would think and the encouragement he would have given. It was embarrassing, but he absolutely had to do something in his honor. Someone had to.

Phone Guy’s apparent death was a numb shock at first. But it sunk in, and it sunk in like teeth, especially when he tried to report it. Management had the gall to act as if his disappearance had nothing to do with what went on in the building after midnight.

When they pulled the excuse of him being a “no-call, no-show”, as if he wasn’t a murder victim but an unreliable worker, Mike had to force himself not to play the recordings and shove reality in their callous faces. But it would have done no good — they knew what went on, there was no way they wouldn’t — so it wouldn’t have brought any revelations. Most likely, the calls would have been deleted, forever erasing the only thing left of a vanished person and the only difference between life and death for future night guards.

The level of apathy for human life was completely unfathomable to him. They didn’t file a police report, and they refused to reveal any information so he could do it. He couldn’t even get his name. _And for what_ , Mike wondered _, a company’s reputation?_ _He was a person._

Over the entire year, the sorrow he felt would come and go in tides. But whenever it started to fade, it always spiked. Mike would never let himself forget him. Even if it felt miserable.

**_**

A loud knock from the door made Mike’s heart thud against his chest. As he creaked open the door, he saw the same man from earlier waiting patiently outside. He was still wearing the same pizza delivery uniform, but this time, he had another box of food with him.

“Um. I didn’t order that,” Mike greeted.

He chuckled. “No worries! We had leftover breadsticks. We always have leftover, uh, something. Would you like some?”

“Definitely.” A strong gust of chilling November wind blew through the doorway, disrupting Mike’s thoughts. "How about you... come inside?”

Mike stepped aside to let the other in. Having Phone Guy inside his home made him notice how empty it felt before. At the same time, it was jarring. Looking at him while the voice of a supposed dead person came out of his mouth was jarring. All of that paled in comparison to the nagging in his mind about that damned message.

“So, something fucked up is happening,” Mike announced, closing and then deadbolting the door.

“Uh, okay. Go on.”

“I got a voice message a few days ago. Someone told me to come to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to get compensated for… some urgent work? And there is a deadline this Thursday. And he knows I always wondered what happened to you.”

“W-What? To _me_?”

“Well…” Mike paused. “He didn’t mention anyone specific, but it had to be about you. He said he knows that I always wondered what happened to ‘him’. Who else would that be?”

“I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“ _Seriously_?”

“Well, yeah! That whole thing sounds a bit… vague. Honestly, I cannot think of a way to make it any _more_ vague, assuming you’re not leaving out any details."

“No, I don’t think I am,” Mike said, apprehensively tapping his foot on the ground.

“It sounds like some bored guy making a prank call to me. Do you have any idea how much talk there is about the franchise?”

Mike looked up. “The franchise of Freddy Fazbear?”

“Yeah, um, especially this time of year.”

“But they called _me_. He knows my name!” Mike protested.

“Uh… o-okay. That’s a bit freaky. I can admit _that_. I think there could still be an explanation, though.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“Kids like to break into abandoned properties all the time. We’ve even hired guards after a location permanently closed until the animatronics could be placed into a proper storage facility. It was _that_ much of a problem. Uhm, so possibly, someone found the employee directory and thought it would be funny to harass you?”

“That actually does sound plausible,” Mike agreed. “But… what are the odds of you delivering me pizza?”

“It was bound to happen.” Phone Guy smiled. “I know how scary the lingering memories can be, but I just want you to remember you can relax now. You no longer work there. Freddy Fazbear is out of your life for good.”

Mike sighed. “Thanks.” He smiled. “Really. I _really_ needed to hear that.”

“Yeah! I have my moments of paranoia, too. Just know it’s all in your head,” Phone Guy said, pointing at his own temple. Suddenly, he laughed. “Sometimes, I’d even hallucinate on my shifts! Crazy, right?”

Asking him what he hallucinated briefly crossed Mike’s mind, but idea made him nauseous. Maybe ignorance was bliss, because he had a feeling they saw and heard the same things, and he didn’t want to think about what that would mean.

“So, I have a coat rack,” Mike said.

Phone Guy chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a very nice one.”

A moment later, Phone Guy turned toward the rack. Clumsily, he started to slip off his neon windbreaker while still holding the box.

“Lemme take that for you,” Mike said as he took the box.

“Thanks, uhhh… Mike!”

Mike laughed. “Shit, here I was worried that I forgot to tell you my name.”

“Actually, you… you did forget,” Phone Guy said as he peeled his eyes off the rack and faced Mike.

“Wait, then how did you know it?”

For a moment, Phone Guy looked caught off-guard, but then a lopsided smirk widened on his face. "How did you know _my_ name?"

"I don't?" Mike said while glancing at his polo, which was missing his name tag.

"Welp, hope I didn’t get written up,” Phone Guy said, looking down at his polo. He then wiped his hands on the shirt and cleared his throat. "Anyway, I-I'm not stalking you or anything. I saw your name tag on your coat from the rack! Your _security guard_ coat."

Mike crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Well, I just think it's kinda strange how you were upset that I worked at a pizzeria when you are still, uh, in fact, a security guard yourself somewhere else."

Staring at the other, Mike suddenly felt dizzy from all the blood that drained from his face, leaving it cold. He looked down at the carpet in shame.

The grin on Phone Guy's face wilted. "Not that there's anything wrong with that! You, uh, you just feel more comfortable working as something you have experience in, right? There's nothing wrong with that! In fact, that's exactly why I work where I do now!"

After a moment of silence, Mike cleared his throat. "Yeah, thanks," he said with a slight smile. "I’m still real sorry about flipping out on you. What’s your name, by the way? I’ve just been mentally calling you ‘Phone Guy’, because… uh… you talked to me on the phone… and you’re a guy.”

“Phil Mustermann.”

“Phil Mustermann,” Mike repeated. It felt nice to finally say his name. “ _Phil_. Nice to meet you.”

Only when Mike glanced down did he realize that a hand was extended toward him, and he grabbed it and shook it with both hands.

“ _Phone Guy_ ,” Phil mused. “I love that! You could keep on calling me that, you know.”

“Sounds great, Phone Guy. Maybe I will. Let’s eat.”

Mike guided them to the kitchen, and he gestured to the pizza from earlier.

"Ha, I’ll pass. Pizza gets so gross after a while of eating it every day, you know?" Phil said.

"No," Mike quickly responded while kicking an empty pizza box on the floor under the table. He did not know how he missed that one.

Slowly, Mike lowered his aching body down into a chair. Still now, he couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe this man was not dead _and_ that he was right here in his own home, sitting right across from him at his tiny kitchen table.

Mike took in every detail of the person a few feet away from him. The wear of anxiety was apparent on Phil: picked-at nails and raw lips from biting, as he was doing now. The contradiction of being simultaneously nervous and nonchalant was something Mike couldn’t logically balance out, yet here he was in front of him to prove him wrong.

There were so many things Mike always wanted to tell and ask him, and he didn’t know where to begin.

“So, Phone Guy, or Phil, I’ve always wondered. Why did you keep on insisting nothing was a big deal? It clearly kind of… was.” Mike asked. He supposed he would begin there.

Promptly, Phil straightened up and cracked his knuckles. “ _Many_ careers have workplace-associated dangers. Construction, firefighting, uh, mining, heck, even being the pizza delivery guy! We at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza are no different. Really. You just have to follow the approved safety protocol, and you’ll most likely be fine. Uhm, the protocol at Fazbear’s just happened to be not letting them in your office, which, you shouldn’t do anyway.”

Mike’s face slacked.

“I’m kidding!” Phil shouted as he frantically waved his hands. “I’m kidding. Uh, so to actually answer your question, well, I guess I encouraged staying calm for a few reasons. For one, to circumvent any performance anxiety. It’s a proven fact that one does not perform as well while nervous, es-especially while being watched, and since your job performance is directly tied to your health, well... yeah. Uh, also, I worked there for quite a while, so it really didn’t seem like that huge of a deal anymore—for me, personally. I really had the routine down to a T.”

“But you,” Mike began, the dryness of his throat interrupting him. “Got caught.”

“Yeah, you’re right… I did,” Phil uneasily confirmed.

Awkwardly, Mike drummed his fingers against the table surface. “Did you think the management would have deleted your messages if you were more open about the truth?”

Though Phil still seemed upset, a slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“I dunno, I think I was pretty explicit about everything already, especially with the eyeballs and teeth popping out and whatnot. A-And the Bite of ’87. Uh… if anything, I’m surprised you were able to listen to them! I probably should have had more of a filter, but hey, in hindsight, everything worked out!” Phil said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “How are you? Just in general.”

“I’m doing great! I could have a better job, but uh, I guess I can’t really complain.”

Mike laughed. “Yeah. Fazbear’s fucking sucked.”

“Everything could have probably gone better there,” Phil sighed.

“Work with me!” Mike shouted. His stomach sank when he realized what he just blurted. “Er, we’re short on employees at my company right now, and since you worked as a night guard, they would love to have you! Full-time and benefits! And they pay ten dollars an hour!”

“That sounds great, Mike! I’ll definitely consider dropping by!”

“That’s good. I… definitely want to work with you,” Mike awkwardly said, mentally pulling at his hair. Talking to people was hard when he didn’t do it as much as he should, discounting the fact he still wasn’t entirely convinced he had a grip on reality.

“Yeah! We were almost coworkers back then, but not really. I bet it kind of seemed like it on your part. The night shifts can get pretty lonely. Did you ever talk to anyone? Uh, besides the animatronics, I guess… if you did talk to them. Like I did,” Phil said.

“Um, at first, I thought your calls were live. So, I talked to you, I guess. Besides that,” Mike’s tone dropped. “Ugh. The management. Shit, they fucking sucked.”

“Yeah...”

Mike pounded his fists on the table. “They were soulless! I swear, they got off on making people miserable. We all know your husband doesn’t love you, Janice.”

Phil laughed. “Oh yeah, I remember her. Yeah, she… yeah.”

The idea of digging further into it crossed Mike’s mind, and immediately, his chest tightened. He knew it was going to be like getting burnt from rubbing antiseptic all over a wound. It would definitely hurt, but it was something he felt he needed to do. However, he didn’t know if it tactful to bring up. It probably would be rude. He started to worry maybe he was lingering on Fazbear’s too long. He knew he didn’t like thinking about Fazbear’s himself, so he hated himself for forcing someone else to, especially if that someone almost died there.

“How long did you work there?” Mike blurted anyway.

“Gee, well. Too long. That’s how long. You really want to know?” Phil responded, who sounded surprised to hear that question.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind sharing.”

Phil leaned across the table and smiled. “Promise not to make fun of me?”

“I promise,” Mike said.

In response, Phil’s eyes darted around while he did some mental calculations.

“Twelve years.”

“Wha... What,” Mike gasped dryly. “You’re kidding again.”

Phil sat back down and leaned against his chair. “Nope, started in ’81 as a part-time job in high school.”

“Shit, you basically worked your whole life there. Is that why you stayed for so long? Some kind of fucked up version of Stockholm syndrome?”

Awkwardly, Phil smiled, and then he shrugged. “Yeah, you could say that. Hey, I have a question for _you_. How are you feeling? Uh, just in general, too.”

“There’s been ups and downs, but I’m definitely better off now than a year ago, especially since you’re here. Um, I’m still recovering though. I was already in a bad place and then _that_ hell week had to happen.” Mike leaned forward to whisper. “How did you manage to do that? Every night for twelve years?”

“I’m glad you’re better! Uh wait, I was actually only a night guard for about five years. Prior to that, I mostly did office work in the day,” Phil informed, shrugging again.

 _Only five years. This guy_ , Mike mentally scoffed.

Suddenly, Phil’s face fell. “Wait, I… uh… actually have another question for you. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever find anything in the back?”

A chill ran up Mike’s spine.

“W…What do you mean? You weren’t there, right? Were you?” Mike asked with a lump in his throat.

“Sorry, th-that’s not what I meant. Don’t worry, I _definitely_ was not there by the time you were hired. Uh, I what meant had more to do with animatronics themselves. I-I always wondered if there was something… inside them, if that made sense. I’ve saw the inside of them countless times and always saw nothing, but…” Phil rambled, anxiously shifting around as he continued. “Uh, sorry, Mike. I’m just being weird.”

“Like spirits?” Mike offered.

“I don’t… believe in ghosts. But I think they’re… sentient.”

“What? The animatronics?”

“Yeah, I think, maybe, the technology is really advanced? Too advanced? I don’t know. That’s just a theory. Uhm, I-I mean, have you ever seen robots with those capabilities before?” Phil asked.

“I dunno. They’re shitty piles of rust, if you’d ask me. The bare minimum when programming something should be to not kill your fucking employees,” Mike said.

“Ha, yeah, maybe you’re right. But I always felt like I wasn’t, um, alone during my shifts. Didn’t you? Who knows, maybe it was just all those wacky mold fumes messing with my mind.”

“Are you sure you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Suddenly, Phil froze and stared at Mike in silence. It was like a paused movie frame from how abrupt it was and how still he was.

“I believe in ghosts. I think you’re a ghost,” Mike added.

Just as suddenly, the stillness shattered.

“ _What?!_ ” Phil laughed.

“Yeah, out of all the days, _you_ show up today. Let me feel your pulse. But maybe it’s a ghost pulse. Whatever. Let me feel it anyway.”

Phil extended his wrist toward Mike and smiled. “Knock yourself out, weirdo.”

At first, Mike didn’t feel anything but skin, but then he felt a faint beat underneath his fingers after a few tries. His flesh felt warm and alive. It looked alive, too. Mike found himself lost in the mazes and networks of veins in his forearm. Then, he glanced up and saw Phil watching him patiently.

“Wait,” Phil interjected, withdrawing his arm. “What do you mean? By out of all days?”

Mike's stomach twisted. "Don't you know what day it will be in a few minutes?"

"I don't know... uh, your sister’s birthday?"

"How the fuck did you know that?!"

A sheepish grin grew on Phil’s face. "Ahah, uh, lucky guess, I guess? I swear, I really am not fol—stalking you. I wouldn't do something like _that_. Stalking is wrong! Uh..."

"It's fine. I believe you... I think. Anyway, well, that too," Mike began. "But you died. It will be the day I heard you die."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Phone Guy’s identity is anonymous, I thought a name associated with anonymity would be fun. (“Max Mustermann” is the German equivalent of “John Doe”. Mustermann = “Sample man”.)
> 
> I chose Phil for his first name literally just because it is close to “phone” and it made writing everything easier imo! Also Phil fits him.


	3. Post Employment Follow-up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and Phone Guy make breakfast together!

The moment Mike said that, the air stood still, and Phil stared at Mike with his mouth slightly agape. He was speechless.

As his eyes began to sting, Mike looked away. "And so I've been too depressed to leave the house besides work. That's why. That's why I ordered pizza all those times."

The atmosphere remained still for a few moments. Mike decided to break the silence.

"There hasn't been a single day where I haven't thought about you, you know that, right?" Mike’s voice cracked. He picked up his head and stared straight into Phil’s eyes. "I checked the back like you asked. Nothing. I searched the whole restaurant. Hell, I tore those damned animatronics apart my seventh night! Nothing. I tried _everything_ I could. I read years’ worth of records to try to find out anything. Nothing. I failed you.”

Although he felt like he was about to shatter, he continued to look at Phil, who looked back at Mike without interruption. Absolute shock was on Phil’s face, but it was also twinge with guilt and melancholy.

“Mike,” Phil began. “First… first of all, you did not fail me, or anyone for that matter, alright? You survived. That’s _all_ I wanted.”

As he heard those words, Mike could feel his heart pang.

“And you went above and beyond. I can’t believe you did _all_ that, and… you… you checked the back for me?" Phil faltered. He flashed a warm, glistening smile. "Thank you."

"Of course I did! I had to! You’re a person. A goddamn fucking person. Management might not have a grip on humanity, but I can tell you, I do. And I can’t be more ecstatic that you’re alive.”

“You’re exactly what the world needs, Mike, never forget that. And uh wait, did you say your seventh night? Great job! How many night guards can say they lasted seven nights? Not very many."

"I know, they all died," Mike muttered.

"Uh, no...? Who told you _that_?"

"You did!"

"N-No I didn't! I said they _moved on to other things,_ ” Phil argued. “Let’s see… he moved to the day shift before the week was over and so did Jeremy. Um, and that Fritz guy was fired. Hm, and all of them… yep. We lived, too! So, there’s that.”

“How the hell did you survive?" Mike asked.

Mike immediately realized how fucked up that sounded. It was like he was challenging his presence, as if he shouldn’t have survived. He wished he could take it back.

However, Phil didn’t seem offended.

“Good question!” Phil responded. "You see, I have trouble understanding that myself. Let's start off with, um, what was the first thing you heard?"

On cue, the table rattled from the phone’s aggressive ringing. Mike’s skin jumped from the surprise.

“My life is just a fucking joke,” Mike groaned. He picked up the phone.

Phil laughed. “You sure are full of odd coincidences, aren’t ya?”

_"Hi!"_ a perky woman greeted. It sounded slightly distorted and prerecorded. _"Are you interested in saving money?”_

A soft beep emitted from across the table. “Tell your sister I said happy birthday!” Phil cheered as he looked down at his watch.

Mike’s focus averted back to the phone. He told the telemarketer, “No,” and hung up.

“It’s midnight,” Mike remarked in awe.

“Technically, it’s about thirty min- _seconds_ slow, but yeah,” Phil corrected.

A loud rumble came from Phil’s stomach. Mike took notice to the now empty box of bread sticks.

“Shit, I don’t have any more food besides that pizza. I’m sorry,” Mike admitted.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry. I was just kidding, okay? I-I'm fine with pizza, really!” Phil said, grabbing a slice. He put it back down when he noticed it was one of the last slices. “Hey, what shift do you work tomorrow?"

“Nonexistent shift. Fridays are my day off, why?”

“We can eat something at my place. If you want to, that is. I can cook us a nice dinner… er, breakfast? How does that sound?”

“Wait, are you sure?"

“Yeah, of course! I mean uh, how many days in a row have you ordered pizza? You must be sick of it by now."

"Five, counting today."

"Oh no, we got to get you something then. You deserve better than that, unless uh… you _really_ like pizza."

The phone started ringing again. Mike picked it up just to hang up.

"I don't."

** _ **

“Looks like the storm for tonight is starting,” Phil remarked, reaching for windshield wiper dial. “Heard it’s gonna be wild! Glad that delivery shift is out of the way.”

In a manner of minutes, the isolated water droplets intensified to a barrage of rain pounding against the windshield.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Mike agreed.

Phil placed a hand over another dial. “Do you listen to the radio, by any chance?”

Mike’s heart raced, but he couldn’t figure out why.

“No, but put it on if you want,” Mike said.

Hesitantly, Phil removed his hand from the radio’s dial. “So, I suppose you’re still wondering how I managed to make it out. You said you heard that call, right? What did you hear?”

"A scream from the pits of Hell."

"Oh, that was just Fredbear!" Phil recollected.

"Yeah, just him.”

“What he did to me, however, well... uh. I don't know what he did to me, to be perfectly honest. I just remember waking up in him.

"You... you... you were _stuffed_ in him?!”

"Well, of course! What else would they do?"

The thoughts that usually plagued Mike played in his head. Rip off his limbs, shred and rip out his organs, tear into his flesh, snap his bones in half... the usual. He cringed and swallowed the burning sensation of his last meal creeping up his throat. "N-Nothing," he finally answered.

"Exactly! Now, usually that would result in death and dying, but because of his certain uh design, it wasn't so bad—"

"You weren't hurt at all?" Mike interrupted.

"Well, I did suffer some fractures or a dislocated joint here and there, but I believe that was from the initial attack.”

Hearing that made Mike queasy. “Jesus Christ! Are you okay?” he asked, looking Phil up and down for signs of injury.

“I appreciate that you’re concerned! I’m more than fine now,” Phil answered with a smile. “Specifically because of what I got stuffed into. It happened to be one of those suits designed to double as a costume. I'm sure glad he didn't snap back into his animatronic mode! Heh, that wouldn't have been a good night for me. Do you want to go inside, by the way?”

It was only then when Mike noticed they were parked. Mike took a glance out the window and saw an apartment building. Phil reached under his seat and retrieved an umbrella. They both opened their doors and walked into the dim, cool parking lot under the shelter of the umbrella.

As they approached the building, Mike cleared his throat and asked, "So... how did you get out of... whatever the hell you call that bear?"

"Well, I had to do quite a bit of waiting, but no one ever seemed to come into the back room. After the day shift most likely started, I realized I had to do _something_ to alert someone. That... was pretty hard to do, as uh, talking, sneezing, coughing, hyperventilating, crying, laughing, sudden movement, or any bodily function, really, will undo the springs, and, well..."

"So that's how you knew what would happen if someone got stuffed if no one died while being a night guard," Mike interrupted. "Okay, sorry, go on about how you survived that death spring trap thing."

"Aren't you observant?" Phil replied with a half grin. "No wonder why you did so great all those nights with no problem! You're a natural! Anyway, there was a spare phone in the back, so I used that to send a voice mail for the office."

A lump of pride swelled in Mike's throat. "Y-Yeah, you know it! Just like you always told me. I learned from the best. Couldn't have done it without you," he said after he scratched the back of his head and turned his smiling face away. "But, wait, I thought you couldn't talk? How could you make a phone call then?"

Phil opened the building door and let Mike walk inside. "Well, technically, you _can_ talk. It's just not... advisable. But uh, I wasn't the one who was talking. You see, the voice boxes of those spring animatronics have, uh, a glitch when they're compressed in the costume mode and make… quirky noises. That was enough to alert the poor day guard that _something_ was going on!"

"Do those 'quirky' sounds," Mike said while doing air quotes, "happen to sound like demonic garble?"

"Uh yeah, they actually were described in very similar terms to that before," Phil answered as they walked up the concrete stairs. "Wait, you heard that? You, uh, you weren't supposed to hear that. Did they forget to delete that recording?"

Mike shrugged. "Guess so."

As they continued climbing the stairs, the conversation grew quiet. Phil climbed a few more steps up to reach the third floor, and then he walked into the hallway. Mike followed him until they stopped in front of a door.

The door crept open after Phil unlocked it. Then he reached over, flipped the light switch, and let Mike walk in first.

Mike's eyes widened. How could it be so... clean? How could anyone have their life together that much? Of course, it didn't look like a set-up for a viewing; it still looked quite lived in. Quite comfortable to live in.

_

Anticipation was strong in the air, as was the smell of eggs and bacon. Mike knew this was going to be the best midnight breakfast in the goddamn world. He could feel it.

Mike was watching the food sizzle on the stove, while Phil was making French toast on the counter. When the phone started ringing, it was a no-brainer for Mike to take it. He could imagine that Phil did not want to get his Salmonella egg hands all over his phone.

As he walked away from the kitchen, Mike took a glance back. Phil had tied on an apron before they started cooking. Never in a million years would Mike consider wearing an apron for any of what they were making. He couldn’t help but find it unbelievably cute.

With a new sense of peace, along with being immersed in their cooking, Mike almost entirely forgot about the earlier phone turmoil. That is, until he picked it up.

_"Are you interested in saving money?"_ the same perky female voice on the phone asked.

Mike exhaled through his nostrils. “Oh, it’s just you.”

The other end grew dead silent. A few seconds later, something shifted in the background. Mike could hear the phone be placed down and picked up again, followed by a struggling breath blowing into the phone.

"Who is this?" a deep man's voice asked.

Mike’s skin crawled. He hated telemarketers so much, especially ones that called past midnight. Hanging up wouldn’t be enough to fix it; he needed to actively misdirect him.

"It's me," Mike answered.

"Seriously, who _are_ you? And how were you on multiple lines?"

"Uh, Mike," a voice behind him said, making Mike jump. It was Phil’s voice. "Who are you speaking to?"

Carefully, Mike covered the mouthpiece with his hand. " _I'm trying to find out_ ," he whispered and then uncovered the phone. "Who are _you_?" Mike directed at the phone.

"I asked you first," the voice answered.

"Good for you! Want a goddamned Nobel Prize for that?" Mike asked.

"Mike!" Phil snapped. After he saw Mike flinch, he softened his expression. "Be, uh, a little nicer. The person on the other side is a human too, so give them a little more respect, okay?"

Mike swallowed and nodded.

"What do you wa—why are you calling?" Mike asked in a politer tone.

"For Phil Mustermann, of course. This is his phone address,” the man impatiently stated.

Something felt off. He sounded very familiar.

Then it hit Mike: he was the one who made the voice message a few days prior. Mike turned to Phil and looked at him with mouth agape, unsure of what he needed.

“Don’t act stupid. I _know_ you are with him,” the man said.

Arms crossed, Phil returned the look and scrunched his eyebrows. "Everything okay there?"

**HAA... HAA... HAA...  
**

The phone flew out of Mike's hand as if were a pan straight out of the oven.

_No! This can't be!_ Mike internally screamed, but there was nothing else that deep crying laugh could be other than Freddy.

As soon as Mike regained awareness, he caught Phil already holding the phone.

"Uh… hello, hello?”

Instantly, Phil’s face dropped. His eyes darted to Mike’s, full of uncertainty. Without peeling his eyes off of Mike’s, he slowly slid his finger over a button and pressed down.

“…Can’t believe it’s YOU!” the voice exclaimed from the speaker loud enough to overwhelm it. “Long time no see, am I right?”

“He called you. Why’s he acting shocked you answered? What did he expect?” Mike blurted. A moment later, he remembered it was on speaker phone. He could only hope it went one way.

Silently, Phil shot another desperate look back, but Mike failed to decode it.

“So, I heard via word-of-mouth that you had a, let’s say, rough night on one of your shifts. How was that?” the caller asked.

“W-Well, uh, well,” Phil’s voice croaked. “Everyone has bad days once in a while.”

“Sure, sure, yes, but I heard there was a particularly bad night on your last week.”

“A-A… few times, I mean, they wandered a bit from the party room. And I was paranoid they’d might want to visit the office, as-as… it’s not exactly easy to, uh, focus on your night-guardly duties when there’s a giant bear stomping around and singing in your space. But… it was no big deal. Really. Thanks for asking.”

Mike had to fight the urge to not unplug the phone right then and there. Something in Phil’s voice seemed very wrong, like a horribly bent freshly broken arm.

“Mhm,” the caller hummed. “You weren’t the most competent security guard for sure, but hell if you weren’t dedicated! Ha, sorry about the language. I have a question. Have you heard of my son lately? I’ve been trying to get in reach with him.”

“No. I have guests over. C-Can’t be rude. Good night and good luck finding him,” Phil blurted.

With how much his hands were shaking, Phil struggled to hang up. He then covered his face with his still trembling hands.

“Ugh, that was… bad,” Phil muttered through his hands.

“Who was that?” Mike asked.

“My old boss. Uh, our old boss.”

It was silent for a few moments. Suddenly, Phil flinched.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked. He looked down and saw goosebumps covering the other’s arms.

Mike led Phil to the couch, who reluctantly followed, and he lowered them both into a cushion. From next to him, Phil stared across the room.

“So, you most likely don't know this, but almost all of the animatronics have a switch that can control their AIs – even the spring editions,” Phil said.

He knew that. “And?”

“Now, they can be switched to a very low level, even zero, but this will damage their gears from a lack of movement. Uh, on the other end of the spectrum, they can be turned up to 20. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, unless uh, the animatronics have a goal in mind that may or may not result in your death and dismemberment."

“What are you—” Mike began, interrupted by the curt ringing of the phone.

Phil flinched again. Mike grabbed his arm and leaned in.

“I’m going to check the caller ID for you and be right back, okay?” Mike assured in a whisper, despite that each shrill ring tied another knot in his stomach. “I won’t pick up. I promise.”

In return, Phil nodded. Mike bumped into a few things as he rushed to the phone before the ringing ended.

_'UNAVAILABLE NUMBER',_ the screen read in black lettering.

_Shit, of course_ , Mike groaned internally. The thought of unplugging the phone crossed his mind. But it was too late: the ringing died.

Carefully, Mike walked back over to the couch. He sat back down next to Phil and thought about what to say. Then, the phone beeped its answering machine soundbite.

_“Hello again. It’s me, William. Sorry to bother you, but I had another question. Weren’t you found shoved inside a suit? That is kind of fatal, isn’t it?_ _What suit did that happen to be? Ah. One of the spring suits, wasn’t it?”_

There was a momentary pause.

“ _Wonderful! They are still able wind up after all these years!_ _At any rate, your guest sounded awfully familiar. Did he work at Fazbear’s? I’ve been making sure to follow-up with past employees. Goodbye.”_

The line clicked. The message was short, but it was enough to make Mike feel absolutely nauseous.

Mike felt something yank his arm. He looked up and saw Phil trying to pull him up with a terrified expression on his face.

“Y-You need to leave, Mike. Immediately.”

“At least tell me why,” Mike said.

“That will take too long, so no. You need to leave now. For me, alright?” Phil demanded. “And if… if you ever hear that voice again, call the police immediately, okay?"

"They can't arrest Freddy," Mike muttered.

" _Freddy?_ Wha-What does _Freddy_ have to do with this?!" Phil exclaimed.

"He was on the phone!"

Phil’s eyes widened. "What _on Earth_ is he doing at Fazbear's? This... this is not good..."

"Well, it's called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza for a reason."

“I don’t care about Freddy!” Phil snapped. “Uh, sorry about that, but I don’t know what you’re… uh…”

“I don’t know anything, because _you’re not telling me_ anything, so for all I know, Freddy Fazbear himself is after us,” Mike mumbled.

“Uh fine, I-I’ll bite. Wait, did you really hear Freddy on the phone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh God.” Phil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Uh. William… he’s probably a serial killer, is probably going to come here, and will probably try to kill me, okay? Hey, there’s a bus stop right across the street. Here-Here’s your tip back. Use it for the fare.”

Phil dug into his pocket and retrieved some change. Mike refused the offer.

“He’s the one who called me. At my house. And he knows my name. So who knows if he knows my address,” Mike said.

“What! He did? Why?” Phil exclaimed, grasping at his hair.

“Hell if I know. But a serial killer? You can’t be serious.”

“It’s… plausible.”

A forced grin widened on Mike’s face. “Ha! For real. Wouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, Mike, I’m serious!” Phil pleaded. “I think that’s why the AIs were turned up to 20 on me. He knew… I knew… too much.”

“What the fuck! Someone did that to you?” Mike’s rising anger was replaced with a sudden onset of dread. “Wait, are you talking about the one from all those years ago? Who murdered those kids?”

Phil nodded.

“But… they caught the killer. He’s in jail now,” Mike continued. His throat felt dry.

“You know, Mike, I was a suspect too. Everyone really did think it was me for a while. So uh, take that fact with a grain of salt.”

“What do you think we should do?” Mike asked.

Phil looked up at him. "I'm very sorry, Mike. This is all my fault. Sorry to ruin your day off, but we... are going to have to, uh, get the police involved."

For the next ten minutes, Phil said a lot on the phone but nothing to Mike. Though Phil seemed very stressed throughout the calling, Mike thought it was going well. In the meantime, Mike made sure to tidy up the kitchen and store the half-made food in the fridge.

The phone buzzed after it hung up. Phil sighed and slammed it back into the base. He looked very beat-up, mentally. Mike already was standing next to him, but he took another step closer and reassuringly patted him on the shoulder.

“Uh so, they are sending someone to check on the building. But if I’m being honest, I’m not feeling too optimistic about it. Um, the operator directed me to a non-emergency line, and they well… they kind of called me a paranoid idiot. I don’t blame them. He’s the CEO, after all. It’s not exactly illegal to be in your own building. Or to call people. Th-That’s not illegal either,” Phil explained.

“No, they’re jerks. Fuck ‘em,” Mike said.

“Mike.”

All the hairs on Mike’s arms raised. “Yeah?”

“Imagine you're a child who loves Freddy Fazbear and his gang,” Phil proposed.

"Seems impossible, but okay."

"And then you find out Freddy Fazbear's Pizza shuts down for good. You're sad, right?"

"No."

"Well, you're sad," Phil corrected, slightly annoyed. "But then someone promises you can see your animal friends once again..."

Mike choked. "You think he's killing children again?"

"Uh, something like that."


	4. A Midnight Drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~*~*~POV switch!~*~*~ I know it’s probably annoying, ope, but it’s what the story needed to make some things clearer further on. As we know, Phone Guy doesn’t always share the full story with others. There is a short prelude with Mike’s POV before switching to Phone Guy.
> 
> Graphic warning applies during the prelude. Mike badly needs therapy.

The steering wheel was beginning to slip under Mike’s grip. His palms were sweating furiously, and he could not wait until the next stoplight to wipe his palms off. But for now, he had no option but to grip the wheel tighter.

Considering William found their phone numbers and was inside Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, he likely had access to an employee directory – which meant he also had access to their addresses. Quickly and unanimously, they concluded that it would be safer to spend the night at a hotel or motel. They also agreed that since William might remember what Phil’s car looked like, it would be best to take Mike’s car.

Now, Mike’s focus was on the road and getting to any hotel or motel, preferably one populated enough to make a prospective murderer question their idea.

Something about William seemed unshakably familiar. Recalling the voice messages from earlier in the week did not alleviate his conviction. Intuitively, he knew it had to be from somewhere else.

Whatever it was, it had to be from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, right? It was most likely from there. That was a start. Mike tried to start jogging his memory.

He recalled those first three nights. Besides the constant threat of dying, they were pretty unremarkable. The place freaked him out, so he never arrived at his post more than fifteen minutes early, and he left shortly after his shift was over. He didn’t get the chance to talk to anyone yet.

Everything changed on his fourth shift. Up until that night, he felt invincible. Though he was new to the area, he heard echoes of the urban legends surrounding the place, all too bizarre to believe. And even if he ended up taking the rumors to heart, it was too easy to believe he would always stay alive when being alive was all he has ever known.

But someone died in that office doing the same exact job. Ghosts are real. The recordings, the crumpled papers, the indentations in the chair: all of those were phantoms of someone who sat before him. Same place, only separated by time. It was too late to save him.

Still, once the morning bell tolled, Mike rushed to the backstage room, only hesitating as his hand cupped around the doorknob. The coldness of the knob was a jolting reminder that there was a chance he would encounter a mangled, rotting corpse. The same feeling came to him as when he was about to open a forgotten month-old container from the back of the fridge, and that was the moment he started sobbing uncontrollably.

 _How could I think that?_ Mike realized in horror. He thought a person and rotting food were comparable. He would never forgive himself for it. When someone dies, was that all they were reduced to? Rotting sludge? It was at _“Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza: a magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life…”_

He burst into the room. Stinging tears blurred his vision as he tried in vain to search for his fellow night guard.

The next few nights, it took him a few minutes to stop automatically checking the cameras and doors. Once everything caught up to him, a wave of gratitude overwhelmed him. He remained sitting for a while, long enough to feel remorse for coming back another night. When that faded, he was left with emptiness.

Then it was his last day, though he did not realize it.

 _“Hello. Michael, isn’t it?”_ a voice from behind asked.

As a response, Mike turned his head and glared silently. He didn’t want anything from him, not even his image, but it burned into his retinas anyway. Wrinkles in all the right places creased into a genuine-looking greeting. Mike could tell he was supposed to be an admired man within the community.

_“Nice to finally meet you! I make it a point to meet each new addition to the Fazbear Family. I’m Will Afton, founder of Fazbear Entertainment.”_

Mike dryly looked at the hand offered to him.

 _“You’re a murderer. That’s what you are,”_ Mike stated.

Shock, fear, then contempt subtly contorted on Afton’s face before he could finalize his incredulous grin. The genuine expressions only flashed for moments, but it was enough to reveal his guilt to Mike.

Afton chuckled. _“Excuse me?”_

Mike gripped the chair’s armrests and stood up.

_“You heard me. Murderers. The lot of you.”_

He noticed a few other employees nearby staring at him. Before anyone could speak up or notice the tampered animatronics, Mike lit a cigarette and silently hurried out.

So that was where he recognized that man.

_Finally_ , Mike sighed. He arrived at a stop sign on an empty street. He used the chance to wipe his sweaty palms against his pants. Also to check on the passenger, who seemed lost in his own world.

Mike sure hoped Phil’s thoughts weren’t anything like his own morbid daydreams when his mind wandered. Since he never found a trace of Phone Guy, he always assumed the company disposed of the body in their own Freddy Way TM. He imagined they would spray down the guts and blood down the drain with a hose. But where would the meat and bones of the body go? The dumpster was the simplest way for the company to get away with it. And what happens to the contents of a dumpster? It gets crushed and compacted until it is unrecognizable. Finally, the chunks would rot in a landfill.

And if ended up slipping up just once, Mike knew that’s where _he_ would be right now.

In the rear view mirror, Mike noticed movement from a car silently creeping behind them. _I have stopped for a while. Why didn’t they honk?_ he wondered. He looked for oncoming traffic and booked it. One hundred meters further down, he took a turn to a side street; and thankfully, the other car didn’t follow.

* * *

****

* * *

Fortunately, the passenger’s imagination was in fact _not_ as morbid as Mike’s. It didn’t need to be. He already saw it all for himself.

Tonight was an exception. As the road rattled beneath them, Phil couldn’t keep his mind off what William was up to. He hoped he was wrong, but he hoped he was wrong many times before, only for it to end up being worse than thought possible. Hope didn’t hold up as the wondrous thing humanity exalted it to be. Sometimes, it was awful.

“You knew William?” a voice next to him asked.

“Yeah. I did,” Phil forced himself to say. He straightened out his posture. “I worked there over a decade, after all. You could say I looked up to him. That doesn’t… feel great to say… but it is what it is. What about you?"

“I think I met him. Kinda blew up at him, ‘cause I knew he was responsible for your death,” Mike said.

"Could you stop implying I died?” Phil interjected.

Immediately, Phil felt bad for snapping. Yes, being called “dead” felt uncomfortable on top of everything going on already, but it wasn’t a huge deal that Mike kept slipping up — especially since it must have been a dramatic adjustment after thinking he _was_ dead for so long. He felt dead, anyway, so it wasn’t too far off. Besides, Mike was going through a lot, too. What Mike needed was someone to get him through the night, not hostility.

“Shit! Sorry,” Mike apologized. “I mean, I knew he was responsible for what happened. He was in charge of everything and knew what went on, yet he did nothing about it. That makes him responsible for any worker’s death. Fucking vile piece of shit. Anyway, I gave him a piece of my mind.”

Skeptically, Phil furrowed his eyebrows. “Wait, how are _you_ alive? All I did was seem uncomfortable when he spoke to me, a-and then he tried to… uh, get rid of me.”

Phil recalled how over the past few years, he got more and more uneasy around William. Something within his subconscious was screaming at him. The weeks prior to getting caught, he knew William could tell. Their conversations became terse and unbearable. The hungry malice behind William’s eyes was more than apparent.

“Dunno, haven’t seen him since,” Mike muttered. “How do you know all of this was his doing? Not to discredit you or anything. The court ended up not convicting him, so I’m curious what you know that no one else does.”

Phil sighed. The thing was, he didn’t have physical evidence William committed anything besides tax fraud.

“Henry probably knows more than I do,” Phil finally answered.

“Henry?” Mike asked.

“The one in prison. The investigation started in ’87. He was arrested shortly after it began. The evidence against him was, well, damning. Even I believed it at first, but I saw some holes in it,” Phil admitted.

“Such as?”

“Believe it or not, what you just said. Uhm, Fazbear Entertainment always had its issues, but it went quite downhill once Henry quit. You see, Henry and William were its co-founders. But once his daughter was found dead behind one of the restaurants, he became extremely recluse and stopped working almost entirely. I… don’t blame him. Poor guy. Gosh, I’m really getting off-track here.”

“You were talking about the accusation against Henry.”

“Right. Uh, everyone believed the issue had been resolved once Henry was imprisoned, so Fazbear’s was later able to reopen with no problem. But who has always been around for the worst? The bite in ‘87, the sp-spring lock suits… uh.” Suddenly, he started frantically looking and feeling around the door. “It—"

 _It’s me,_ Phil finished in horror. Who was one of the employees who stuck around the longest? The common denominator has always been _him_.

Mike was starting to get concerned, so he pulled over to the shoulder of the road.

“What? What’s wrong?” Mike urgently asked.

Finally, Phil found what he was searching for, and the window on his side slid down.

Wallowing in guilt wasn’t productive. It wasn’t going to bring those children back or fix anything. Right now, focusing on making sure no one else was going to get hurt was the most important thing, and filling Mike in was an important step. Still, he could not abate the nagging shame he felt.

“J-Just needed some air. It gets really stuffy in cars, you know?” Phil answered, wiping his forehead while cool, damp air whirled around them through the window. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, where to begin?”

**_**

The rest of the way, Phil detailed everything that made William suspicious and manipulative. All the moments that seemed off, and all the contradictions and holes. This included inconsistent business decisions, such as getting rid of the security Puppet for “unpredictability”, despite never retiring glitchy old Foxy.

It felt good to finally gush everything out to a listening ear and not hold back, but unfortunately, none of it would go very far in court.

When Mike asked Phil when he realized this, he couldn’t give a definitive answer. All the little things added up until absolutely nothing added up.

A red neon sign flashing _‘Motel’_ blurred past them. Mike prepared to turn around and pull into the parking lot. Now the sign towered over them. The bright red lettering maliciously spelled: _‘Lucky 8 Motel’._

_

_“Are you sure you don’t believe in ghosts?”_

The phantoms of Mike’s words were buzzing in Phil’s head as he paced around the room.

Using the room’s phone to call the operator was the first thing they did after booking the place. They requested for an update on the situation, and it was relayed it was still pending.

While they were waiting, Phil was drowning in his thoughts. People have always been too harsh toward the animatronics. Ugly, gross, old, abominations. Nothing more than clunky machines. For some reason, that upset him. It wasn’t their fault! It wasn’t their fault they were there or looked like that. _They were just kids—made for kids,_ Phil corrected himself. _They were just made for kids._

Whenever his mind wandered to these bizarre ideas, Phil knew he was having an exhausting night. This one wasn’t completely pulled from thin air, because he always felt an immense protectiveness over the animatronics. They always did have a childlike nature.

Of course, he was devastated when they lashed out on people, and their plastic eyeballs seemingly observing was unnerving. Feeling watched must have been a psychological trick from how the eyes would realistically focus and refocus, so he would toss a tarp over their heads. But then he felt bad about it, so he would pretend to play hide-and-seek with them, even going as far covering his eyes and counting out loud.

 _Yeah. There was a reason why my coworkers avoided me,_ Phil recollected.

_Children_. A jolting reminder of cold dread occurred to him. Some innocent kids could be suffering through their last moments _right now_ , and here he was, sitting safe and sound in a motel room.

Phil forced himself back into his current environment. Muted green carpet seared his eyes while he looked down at his feet. He lowered himself on the bed, sinking into the stiff, scratchy bed sheets. Or maybe the sheets weren’t actually that scratchy, but his skin crawled at the thought of bedbugs, despite Mike obsessively checking a few times.

Then he took in a deep breath, inhaling stale cigarette buildup in the room over the years. He already called the emergency line, so he wondered what he was accomplishing by letting himself be paralyzed in fear.

A shadow shifted deliberately from an out-of-view figure. This was proof he wasn’t alone in this – a good and bad thing.

Phil cleared his throat. “Hey, Mike. I, uh, have a question.”

Mike perked up and approached him. “Yeah?”

“Erm… okay, this might be a bit…” Phil prefaced. His palms were getting clammy. “Do you think it’s possible the animatronics may have been, I don’t know, possessed?”

Immediately, Mike’s expression fell sober.

Those words did not feel real as they slipped out of his mouth. He meant to say something else. He started to prepare his apology for proposing something that absurd.

“Hell yes. No question. I _know_ they are possessed,” Mike answered.

“Jeez, you seem pretty confident about that. What gave you the idea?” Phil asked, withdrawing himself and becoming suddenly interested in the yellowed floral curtains.

Mike leaned against the nightstand and crossed his arms. “I worked there.”

“I worked there, too!” Phil protested. He looked back at Mike. “Longer than you, in fact. No offense, but I have more experience, uh so I probably have more of an idea on what’s going—”

“Give me a break!” Mike interrupted. “There you are, trying to talk yourself out of the truth again.”

Phil’s entire body went cold. Those words were simultaneously mortifying and relieving because it was true. It was obvious, yet he never acknowledged it. _Why?_ Was it because he talked himself out of accepting that too?

He could hide from himself at least awhile, but not from someone like Mike. Even if he turned his head away, he would have felt Mike’s icy stare on him like a spotlight. But he didn’t turn away; he stared right back until Mike’s outline imprinted into his fatigued eyes.

“There’s… uh, I…” Phil stumbled, not finding the right words until he decided with Mike, there were no ‘wrong' words. “You’re right.”

“Told you,” Mike said as he plopped down next to him on the bed. He yawned.

“How—”

Unbearable dread hit Phil like a train. He hoped they did enough. Hoped. _What if it wasn’t?_ Anxiously, his stomach knotted.

“Phil?”

“W-What should we do?”

“I don’t know. Why are your hands shaking so much?! Are you okay?”

Phil looked down at his hands, which were trembling. He clasped one hand over the other to try to stop it.

“I’m—no, that doesn’t matter! The kids.”

“The missing children? Oh, wait, you mean how you think it’s possible William’s luring some more kids in? To be fair, I can’t see any kid willingly going inside that dilapidated shed at this point. Willingly. Shit.” Mike sighed. “Hm. Well, we were told to wait. Let’s start with seeing if something happened already.”

Then, Mike lifted himself off the bed and walked to the TV. Chaotic static raced along the CRT screen before he toggled it to a news station. If anything of significance happened, it would be reported on the local news.

Sitting on the nightstand, the alarm caught Phil’s attention from the corner of his eyes. If it had a radio on it, it would also be a great source of information. For instance, a while ago, one of the employees at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza spilled his guts during a call-in for a radio show. Without that, how would the public know about the working conditions at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza?

People were hyping it up again. He found it distasteful. The stations were exploiting the man, who sounded like a devastated mess.

“Hey,” Mike said, still facing the television. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about. All these coincidences aren’t adding up.”

Phil got up and stole a chair from the side table to sit by him.

Colors spontaneously flashed across Mike’s face, whose eyes were cemented to the screen. Phil watched him for a moment and gulped.

“What do you mean?” Phil asked him.

Mike blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Wait, hold on. Keep a lookout.”

Phil obliged. The late-night talk show hosts were busy bantering about Bill Clinton. This was a national channel, and he doubted they would broadcast the incident. At least, he hoped whatever happening wasn’t severe enough to warrant it. Briefly, he shifted to a local news channel, only to be met with infomercials. Which made sense, considering it was nearly 1 AM.

The sound of wooden drawers being rolled out and shut came from behind him. Moments later, Mike came back with a pen and the motel’s sticky memo pad.

“Do you remember the date you got caught?” Mike asked.

“I believe it was, let’s see… the first Sunday of November,” Phil answered.

Promptly, Mike ducked his head and jotted on the notepad, and then he stuck them to the edge of the television stand.

_11-7-93: Your last day._

_11-8-93 to 11-14-93: My employment._

Seeing those dates side by side stung Phil’s dry eyes.

“I can’t believe they did that,” Mike grimly said.

He wished Mike wouldn’t have brought it up.

“Night guards were essential every single night. No one wanted another missing children incident,” Phil reminded, eyes stuck to the television. “Besides, I got out just fine, and what does waiting a few days accomplish? Nothing, so we should move on.”

 _Move on just like all my coworkers,_ Phil mentally added. He chuckled.

Mike shot a confused look.

Monotonous laughter from the talk show’s audience joined in, almost on cue. The dissonance churned Phil’s stomach. He thought his points were strong, so he didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Long held illusions were shattered.

“Anyway, what else?” Phil asked.

Mike wrote on the notepad and stuck some more notes to the counter.

_Mid Nov 93: FFP closed._

_Earlier this week: William called me._

_Earlier today (11-09-94): Pizza delivery._

_Today: William called to “check up” on you._

_William is looking for his son._

_William is at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza._

“Oh, um. Interesting. I may know why William called you,” Phil said.

“Wait, really?”

The hosts were laughing from another irrelevant joke. Phil gritted his teeth, not being able to stand the irritating chatter from the show any longer.

“Before I answer that, the radio should have more valuable information. Is it alright with you if I turn it on instead?” Phil asked, already with his finger on the television’s power button.

“What kind of question is that? Of course.”

Phil crossed the room toward the radio. As he turned it on and tried to find a good station, he spoke up again. “It’s possible, even likely, that call was meant for someone else. William has a son named Michael.”

“Agh! His son is named Michael, too? That doesn’t solve anything! That’s _another_ coincidence to add to the pile. What are the odds?”

“I doubt it’s a coincidence,” Phil replied, listening to a droning conversation about Newt Gingrich.

Mike raised an eyebrow. “You think he hired me out of everyone ‘cause he missed his son?”

“Possibly, though they didn’t exactly have a great relationship. There has been kind of, uh, a pattern regarding employees’ names. He seems to have an affinity to hire those with names that are… familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jeremy, Fritz, Gabriel, Susie, and Cassidy. Those were the victim’s names. And Henry’s daughter Charlie.”

Mike did not speak, leaving a staticky report about Hurricane Gordon and the rattling of the radiator to fill the silence.

“Jeremy and Fritz were also names of night guards. And I remember a waitress with the name Susan. There were two technicians named Gabe and Charles, though he was a guy. That one might've been a stretch,” Phil continued.

Mike scowled in disgust. “Like trophies for his deeds. God, that felt sick to say. How the hell is he not rotting in a cell?”

“You should keep in mind those are reasonably common names.”

“Not Fritz. What a sick fuck,” Mike murmured.

“Also keep in mind he might have not actually done it. Yes, I may really, _really_ suspect it was him, but I could be wrong. I actually tend to be wrong,” Phil said.

Mike rolled his eyes.

“I know, I know, talking myself out of the truth and all that. But we can’t just assume it’s him for sure without solid evidence,” Phil added.

“Either way, he is a killer. Negligence after a point is murder,” Mike stated.

That was a statement Phil could agree with.

A particularly bad week happened at a location doomed from the start in 1987. The investigation, the condemned suit being moved (and God forbid used), and the animatronics suddenly acting wrong. Still, they just had to get through the week, and everything would pass. Then Jeremy Fitzgerald’s skull got crunched open by the Mangle.

If he prepared for the worst, and instead pulled Jeremy off the schedule early, it wouldn’t have ever happened.

Jeremy was lucky to survive. That was why he had to expect the worst.

“What are we doing here? Waiting for the news to report dead kids?”

“Phil?”

“This sounds _awful_ and I don’t expect you to say ‘yes’, but—"

“You want to drive around Fazbear’s? Just to take a look?” Mike finished for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long gap in updates!
> 
> Just realized the conversations in this chapter imply that I'm a serial killer because both of the only fics I currently have posted have a Michael and Jeremy. It is not true. I did not kill anyone. It's bullshit. I did not kill them. I did n o t.


	5. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phone Guy’s POV again. Sorry for it taking 3ever. (Slightly less than 4ever…) Next chapter hopefully will come sooner since it’s more planned now.
> 
> **CW: Implied suicidal thoughts**

Rain pattered hard against the windows. The sound was comforting, but the difficulty to see through the windows was not, regardless how furiously the windshield wipers brushed on the glass. Thunder in the distance roared.

The ambiguity of the dark made it unclear where they were, and for a few moments, Phil felt he was on a regular night drive with a friend. That was the part that unsettled him the most.

He took a glance at Mike, who was focused on the road and seemed somewhat frustrated from getting lost. Phil’s heart hurt because he wanted Mike as far away as possible from all this. His mind scrambled for things he could do for him, but he was at a loss.

Murmurs were coming from the radio. Nothing was happening locally other than road closures. Phil nudged the dial to the next station, catching the fleeting ending of a song.

 _“The world may be asleep, but you are not_ _._ _You’re listening to KMXQ 98.2 just in time for Thrill Thursday! Call in for unexplainable stories that happened to you!”_

Mike groaned.

“What’s up?” Phil asked.

“You heard the same thing I did,” Mike said.

The announcer was pretty obnoxious; Phil had to agree. “Gotcha. I knew you didn’t listen to the radio for a reason.” He chuckled to himself.

Faint telephone ringing sounded through the speaker a moment later.

_“Looks like we got our first caller!”_

Promptly, Mike placed his hand over the dial. It became eerily quiet in the car. Seconds later, static and clanking noises came through the speakers suddenly and loudly. Phil thought he turned off the radio up until that point.

A cackle sounded from the speaker. _“_ _1-888-FAZ-FAZBEAR is the caller ID from our guest. Hope I don’t get in trouble for mentioning that, but anyway, hey! Are you an employee at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza? Maybe a lost kid?”_

_“Still there—”_

_“Great! Fazbear’s closed since last year, but here on KMXQ 98.2, anything is possible. What’s your deal?”_

_“—cold… but... take it any longer. Footnote left b... it hurts… hurts, hurts, hurts. Sealed in.”_ The voice was barely audible until it screeched. _“Don’t leave! Why? ME? Go fucking die! My name…”_

 _“And looks like we lost them. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.”_ The announcer laughed. _“Enough said, right? Still doesn’t beat the crier HIT 103.4 had.”_

“What the hell?” Mike interjected.

“As-As I told you, tons of people have been joking about Fazbear’s lately. People want their fifteen minutes of fame. You know the deal.”

Mike frowned. “Right, like how William was a prank caller.”

Phil bit his tongue. Not everything had to be connected, and the simplest explanation was usually the most likely one. Since Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza was currently hyped up, it made sense. _Then again,_ Phil argued, _what do I know?_

_“Another caller! What’s up?”_

_“Hi. It’s hard to process, so I might not make a whole lot of sense, but I think a friend who passed away reached out to me the other day…”_

It felt suffocating again in the cramped car, except there was no option to open a window in the downpour. Though the heat was not on, he felt himself roasting under his shirt.

He dreaded the thought of the caller being inside Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. On the other hand, if she were in danger, why waste time saying that nonsense? It sounded like fodder for a prank call, which there were a lot of lately. It was easy for someone to spoof the number, and it was even easier for the host to rattle off a number that would draw in listeners.

Still, if he learned anything tonight, it was to not rule out anything.

Phil then felt the car start to drift. He looked up at Mike, who was staring blankly ahead of the road. Cautiously, Phil tapped his shoulder.

“Uh, hey? Are you okay?” Phil asked.

“God, sorry.” Mike blinked. “Where’s the next place to stop? I want to pull over.”

“Well, at this point, our destination.”

“Damn. Alright.”

The whines of the road filled the silence until the car pulled over to the shoulder. Mike turned off the engine and dug his fingernails into the steering wheel.

“Crier? What did they mean by that?” Mike dryly asked, furrowing his brow.

Phil’s throat tightened. “I’m not completely sure. Since they were talking about Fazbear’s, they may be referring to another caller about a year ago.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Uh. He was a night guard like us and talked about how he found Fazbear’s hypocritical for advertising to be a happy place while treating their staff so badly.” Phil’s stomach sunk as he said that, wondering just how many night guards were there between him and the place closing.

“I thought the host said he cried.”

“R-Right! He did. I mean, he was getting pretty wound up about it. I would too if I were him. I-It’s an upsetting subject matter, after all. I know _I_ was a mess too during my days there!”

There was no reply, leaving Phil alone in his nervousness. There was a familiar cadence in that voice. It was on the tip of his tongue.

“What else did he talk about?” Mike finally asked.

“Besides mentioning what went on during the night shifts, uh, he also expressed how awful he felt. Living paycheck to paycheck. Barely existing outside his shift. I think he talked about being lonely and…”

Phil paused. He recalled him rambling about his personal life: being new to the area, struggling with mental illness, and how he should celebrate his sister’s birthday but was not in the state to do it. _His sister’s birthday._ A shiver went through his core. _Did I subconsciously know it was him the entire time?_

“Uh, then he talked a bit about some things going on in his life, and that’s about it,” Phil continued.

“Goddamn it. Shit. I _knew_ it.”

Mike stared ahead into the expanse of rain. Feeling rude, Phil averted his vision away.

“Was that you?” Phil asked.

“Yeah. I barely remember it. I had nowhere else to go to,” Mike admitted. “I don’t know what was going through my mind.”

Phil took another glance at him. From the sight of Mike morosely slouched over the steering wheel, he felt his heart pang.

“I’m sorry, Mike. I wasn’t sure it was you.”

“That’s a good thing.” Mike offered a half-smile. “Anyway, let’s get this Fazshit over with already. I’m tired.”

The drive continued until an island of artificial light appeared in the distance.

The overhead roof of the gas station sheltered them while rain barraged around them on all four sides. It was vacant and slightly unreal. There was a building, two pumps, and a payphone.

“Hey, is there anything I could do for you? I know you’re probably not feeling too great,” Phil said, looking up after he broke the silence.

Though droplets blurred the view on the windshield, he recognized the former Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza looming across from them. The premise was peacefully dark from the outside, but that was from he could tell. His stomach churned.

Mike needed to be in a secure environment. They needed to leave immediately.

“Is there anything you could do for me?” Mike obliviously repeated, straightening out his posture. “You could break into every radio station’s headquarters and destroy all the tapes they have of my voice.”

_But what was William doing?_

Over and over again, Phil learned he never learned his lesson. Ignoring his gut led to tragedy. Now, his gut was demanding multiple, conflicting things. Nothing seemed like the right thing to do, but inaction was worse.

Mike tilted his head back and laughed. “But you could also keep being yourself. I enjoy your company a lot. I don’t know how you’ve been putting up with me tonight.”

There were two distinct possibilities. Either he was going to let someone die again, or he was going to neglect somebody and get both of them killed to selfishly alleviate his guilt when no one was in danger.

“Hey, what’s beating _you_ up? Shit, is that Fazbear’s?” Mike said, shielding his eyes. “Looks like no one’s around.”

Phil exhaled, feeling wrong for feeling relieved. “Er, the problem is that we’re only viewing one side of the restaurant. There could be someone parked toward the front.”

The backend of an older vehicle was visible, but it was hard to deduce further than that.

Phil dug his nails into his arms. Nothing was stopping him from leaving the car _right now._ However, he didn’t have a plan. Which was better: thinking of a plan while time ticked on or saving time by just going?

He pulled on the door’s handle and opened it.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mike snapped, yanking his arm back in the car.

“I—” Phil sputtered. “I-It’ll just be, uh, a quick pop in and out! I’ll just be checking the security cameras, that’s all!”

“You’re nuts! If Afton doesn’t gut you, the demons will!” Mike spat. “And how do you know what he’s up to? You said he owns the building. Maybe he’s fixing some things up. We’re not stepping a foot in there.”

The last closing of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza seemed permanent with being shut down due to health department, but Mike did have a point.

“Also, your plan won’t work. How would you get there without bumping into him? The office is in the back,” Mike added.

“There was a backdoor in the kitchen,” Phil recalled, “they used it to take out the garbage. Uh, that thing was always a hassle to open, but it’s worth a try.”

“So you’re in the office. How would you check the cameras? With _what_ power?” Mike asked.

“There’s always the emergency slash back-up power from the generator. William called us from inside, remember? It must already be turned on.”

“Wait. _Back-up_ power? Why did I never hear of this? That would have been _very_ useful during the night shifts, you know!”

A half-grin spread across Phil’s face. “Mike, that _was_ the back-up power. Uh, they turned off the regular power at night to save money, which was why it could run out.”

“Oh. I hate that place.”

“I know.”

How did he let himself get distracted? They were wasting too much time on this. Phil’s vision locked on the building again. Time was continuing to tick on. He crossed his legs to prevent himself from acting on the impulse to run out.

“Anyway, what kind of fucking Phone Guy are you?”

Phil snapped back to reality. “What?”

“There’s a payphone next to us.”

Blinding white light bathed them as they stood by the phone. The way it bounced off Mike’s light shirt and the tan pavement casted Mike a hazy glow.

“Sir, someone was sent out.”

“How long ago?”

Phil studied how Mike looked down and twisted the cord as he listened to the other end. A cloud of breath dissipated from Mike’s mouth into the cold air. Here was a living, breathing person, an entire universe of experiences.

Here, without any doubt, he knew there someone who was alive who could still stay safe. Whether anyone was in danger inside the restaurant was questionable.

A click distracted Phil from his rumination. It was from the distant car parked at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.

A figure stood beside it, seemingly foraging for something inside the vehicle. They stood up straight and held a faintly glinting object. Though it was hard to make out the person’s identity, it was clear it was an ax. Then, jugs of some substance were pulled out. The person promptly disappeared into the building.

Mike hooked the phone back on the base and sprinted toward his car.

“Wait!” Phil gasped as he ran after him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting my,” Mike lowered his voice, “firearm.”

“You have a… gun in your trunk?”

“Yeah, don’t trust it with me in the apartment. It was my father’s.”

“Er, th-that’s not what I was concerned about.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll only need it if Afton is after some children.” Mike hesitated. “Or on Freddy. Kidding!”

“Mike, this is a one person task.”

“Think about it this way, Phone Guy. If kids really are in danger, they’ll have a better chance if there’s both of us.”

“There’s no kids in there. I just want to check for my own sake,” Phil forced himself to say.

“Goddamn it. We’re not going inside! Just scoping out the area, okay?”

Phil could tell Mike did not fully believe what he was saying, either. “Um. So uh, what did the operator say?”

“He hung up on me.”

“Mike, are you sure about this? This could be potentially dangerous. You only have one chance at living. _Really_ think about that, okay?”

“You live once. That’s why you have to make sure you can live with seeing your face in the mirror every morning,” Mike recited. “That’s what my father used to say.”

Finally, Mike retrieved what he needed.

Tall, dead weeds grown in cracks whacked at their ankles as they rushed toward the parking spot. No one else seemed to be around, but Phil anticipated someone bursting through the building’s back door at any moment.

Now that they were closer, Phil could see the car better. He didn’t recognize it. There was another car that was originally out of view, however, and he knew it as William’s.

A glimpse inside the unfamiliar car revealed tarp and rope.

“Why are you doing this? I thought you never wanted to come here again.”

Mike faced him. “If _you_ of all people are worried, I know it’s serious.”

“I-It’s not…”

“Then why are you trying to convince me to go back?” Mike interrupted. “Either he’s dangerous or he’s not.”

Without another word, Mike took a closer examination at William’s car.

“Please tell me he has a kid,” Mike murmured.

“Not… anymore.”

A smudged handprint was inside a window of the vehicle. It was possible William never had the heart to wash it away, Phil thought.

Some movement flashed in the window’s reflection. It most likely came from them, but Phil was skittish, making him twist his head to the door behind them.

Taking notice to his unease, Mike headed toward the building. They walked under the portion of the roof sticking out. Series of wet shoeprints chaotically overlapped each other, but there was a set undeniably from a child.

Phil fumbled through his keys, trying not to make noise. He could not believe he held on to it for so long, but at the same time, he knew it wouldn’t have gone any other way. Holding on to things longer than he should have was his demise, _wasn’t it?_ An adjusted person would not have held on to such a demoralizing job that long.

The correct key was in his left hand. Once he turned the key and walked in, there was no going back.

Growing anxious, Mike took the worn Fazbear key out of Phil’s hand and jammed it into the door.

 _“Quietly!”_ Phil whispered.

Mike startled and stared at the handle, wide-eyed in regret.

Stale, dead air rushed toward them when Phil carefully opened the door. Uniform blackness stood ahead.

Collectively, the radio call, footprints, and ax came to mind and forced Phil to step inside. Once they were both inside, he guided the door to close. The all-too-familiar miasma of mildew, rot, and filth flooded his senses. They were in the kitchen all right, and the stench of abandoned ingredients and garbage gave it away.

Given Mike’s extra tenseness, Phil realized he never entered the kitchen before. That specific camera feed went down months before Mike took the job, and he likely never had a reason to give it a visit.

Phil grabbed Mike’s hand and guided him around the corner. He hoped Mike would not find it weird; after all, it was a great safety precaution. _That way, we won’t get separated and murdered,_ Phil decided. _Lost, I mean._

Next, Phil examined the East hallway for signs of danger. The light seeping through the windows was adequate to reveal the decrepit interior, characterized by checkered walls and floor littered by junk and children’s drawings. The rain tapping on the roof created a frustrating white noise, and he had to concentrate to determine if anyone was around.

It seemed clear – and then they booked it – traversing across the corridor to the office, never feeling more exposed and watched. The warmth of Mike’s hand anchored him enough to keep his nerves.

Miraculously, they made it in the office without incident.

The right door immediately came down after Mike slammed his palm on the switch, creating more noise than Phil cared for until he realized it was a _very_ favorable trade-off over the open vulnerability from either side.

Mike was a genius; William could only be in one place at once. They were set, unless the power ran low and an animatronic which escaped disassembly was on the other side…

Phil pressed the other switch, letting the remaining door roll down. _No,_ he had to stay optimistic and keep going. He went to check the monitors.

_Power left: 62%._

Reading that was a relief. He wished it were higher, but they were safe for now.

The faint blue glow of the monitor illuminated the room. He could see Mike from the corner of his eye, who was examining the stuff left on the desk. The papers Mike was searching through ruffled from the ancient fan’s wind.

The office resonated a calming ambience akin to his night guard days. It felt almost peaceful. If they were safe now, the following moment must be safe too, and so on. Of course, Phil had to remind himself not to be lulled into the false sense of security.

Toggling through the camera feeds did not reveal much initially. Pirate’s Cove was his first check with Foxy seeming to hide behind the curtain. The halls, janitorial closet, and backstage room were devoid of life. It was not nearly as cheerful as it was when it was opened during the day. It wasn’t all bad all the time. He wished he could go back and show Mike what it was like.

The more feeds he checked, the further the possibilities narrowed. There was one place which was always off-camera.

Despite this, Phil decided to check the remaining feeds. Bonnie and Chica stood still on the stage. Freddy was absent.

The noise Mike was making was beginning to be distracting. Without taking his eyes off the camera, he noticed Mike shove some objects into his jacket pocket.

_Power left: 54%._

_Did it really drain that quickly?_ Phil asked himself, his stomach sinking. Yet of course they were hemorrhaging power. Both doors were down, and he was heavily using the camera. He wiped his forehead and reminded himself that was all they needed, as they were almost done.

Rewinding the footage was the remaining option.

Phil kept the feed on the dining room. A man walked in-reverse toward a heap, slouching and wheezing. It was hard to tell exactly who it was, but he appeared to be older and slightly violet. The hue had been an issue with the camera’s quality.

The further it went back, the graininess of the footage worsened, and the image quality deteriorated until patches of black obscured portions of the screen.

A pair of pinpoint eyes stared at him from the void. It was a strange relief realizing those eyes were from the past and were not presently looking at the camera. He focused on the silhouette and recognized it as Freddy.

_Clang, clang, clang!_ – immediately, Phil knew these new sounds were not coming from the monitor’s audio.

Phil exhaled sharply and snapped his head to the right, the source of the sound.

Startled, Mike picked his gaze off the desk and looked back at Phil in uncertainty.

More sounds came through the right-end metal door, this time more human. Following that, a child’s laughter bounced off the walls.

Phil’s stomach sunk. He looked through all the cameras east of the office – the hall, the bathrooms, anything, only to be met with the same nothingness. The only possibilities left were the kitchen and sealed off room.

Phil jumped out of his seat and pounded the door’s switch, while Mike opened the other door to conserve power. At this point, he refused to look at how low the power reserve got.

When they stumbled into the kitchen, it appeared as abandoned as it did minutes ago.

“Did—were those s…” Phil asked between gasps.

Mike cupped his hands around Phil’s arm, pulling him close.

“Yes,” Mike whispered in his ear, “ _definitely_ from here.”

Mike brandished a flashlight from his pocket and scanned the area. The beam of light was thickly saturated with dust. The only movement in the room came from liquid dripping from the ceiling and splashing into filthy puddles.

Rusty appliances and utensils came into view. Then, the beam glinted against the metallic walk-in freezer door.

Then Mike approached it and started to dig into his gun case while Phil waited in front of the door.

Phil got a strange feeling he should look inside. Dread welled in his gut, because being an older freezer, he knew it locked on the inside without an exit mechanism.

However, he knew those sounds had to come from somewhere. The handle squeaked when Phil pulled at it, the stench in the room intensifying.

A hand pressed into Phil’s back. A jolt of ice shocked through his skin, and he defensively shoved the door back shut.

“Tag! You’re it!”

When Phil turned around, he saw the figure of a child darting through the kitchen.

“Wait! It—It’s dangerous here!” Phil warned.

Ignoring him, the child headed out the kitchen. Phil chased him through the swinging kitchen door, only to lose sight of him.

Something seemed hauntingly familiar about that child’s voice to the point where he wondered if this used to be a regular or a past employee’s kid.

That kid would no longer be a kid.

He realized it too late, as he was already deep in the dining room.

A slouched golden-brown bear came into view in the distance. _Ah,_ _Fredbear_. That took him back to those days when Fredbear and classic Bonnie were onstage, an era ended by a birthday party one year. That day, Daniel Afton’s father took the effort to decorate the restaurant with extra balloons and streamers. There was even a giant multi-tiered cake centered on a table. The issue was that Daniel, being quiet and easily frightened, was not popular with the other kids.

The premises had to be extra clean, so Phil thoroughly swept crumbs into the dustpan. Sweeping was always welcome! It gave him a break from phone calls and office work all day.

When he looked up from the linoleum, he accidentally made eye contact with the onstage golden animatronics. His vision traveled down to Daniel, who sat down at a table alone.

He thought about taking a break and sitting down with Daniel for a minute. However, he wasn’t sure if Daniel would enjoy the company or find it more embarrassing for an adult to sit by him. Despite being a child once before and working at Fazbear’s for a few years, kids were a volatile enigma to him.

From the distance, the office phone began ringing.

The front doors opened, followed by several masked middle schoolers walking in. He recognized the one in the Foxy mask as Michael, and then Phil decided he could return to the office for a few minutes. Phil knew Daniel was safe. After all, he was with his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot BELIEVE I had them straight up chat inside the building in the original. Wow what a perfect way to hide from a murderer.


End file.
